Daniel Therriault is a playwright and screenwriter who made his mark in the 1970s Chicago off-Loop theatre movement. He received a 1977 Jeff Award nomination for Best Actor in a Principal Role for his performance in WHO'S HAPPY NOW? at the Body Politic Theatre.
Therriault's professional stage debut was as a playwright with his first play, BATTERY, which premiered Off-Broadway in 1981 at the Theatre at St. Clements. The play was notable for being the professional stage debut of actress Holly Hunter, who went on to win the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Piano. BATTERY was also performed by The Actors' Gang at Second Stage in Los Angeles, produced by actors Tim Robbins and Meg Ryan.
The play received numerous productions, including the CAST Theatre in Los Angeles starring LeVar Burton, produced by John Wells, in 1983, and the New York Theatre Workshop, the Staatstheater Braunschweig in Germany in 1989, and the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland in 1989. The play was developed for the screen by Oscar-winning director Tony Richardson and Richard Olivier. BATTERY was chosen by Broadway Play Publishing for the company's inaugural printing in 1983.
Therriault's other notable plays include THE WHITE DEATH, which premiered at Kawaiahao Hall Theatre in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1986 and opened at the CAST Theatre in Los Angeles in 1987, and FLOOR ABOVE THE ROOF, which was performed in Chicago in 1987 as a winner in the Great Chicago Playwrights Exposition at the Body Politic/Victory Gardens Theaters and in 1989 at the Henry Street Settlement Arts in New York City.
In 2019, Therriault's play SURPRISE PARTY was published by Per H. Lauke Verlag in Hamburg, Germany. Excerpts from BATTERY, THE WHITE DEATH, and FLOOR ABOVE THE ROOF were published in 100 Monologues by Signet. An excerpt from BATTERY was selected for Solo! Best Monologues of the '80s by Applause Books.
As a screenwriter, Therriault wrote the 1997 HBO film First Time Felon, starring Omar Epps and Delroy Lindo, and the 1999 HBO film Witness Protection, starring Oscar-winner Forest Whitaker and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, which received a Golden Globe Award Nomination for Best Television Film.
Throughout his career, Therriault has received numerous awards and fellowships, including a 1991 McKnight Foundation Artist Fellowship and residency at the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis, a residency at the Tyrone Guthrie Center in Ireland as an artist exchange with author Sebastian Barry, a residency at Robert Redford's Sundance Institute PlayLabs, and a Callaway Award from New Dramatists.
